


Tower Walls

by togekissies



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, M/M, but also with magic? more like. rpg au logic.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 21:52:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2404181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togekissies/pseuds/togekissies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tobio sighs. “What do you want.”</p><p>Hinata takes a half step so he’s not completely facing Tobio anymore, and he starts fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “Uh, well,” he says, and if Tobio didn’t know any better he’d think he was nervous, “I kind of wanted to show you something?”</p><p>-</p><p>A not-yet knight and a not-quite prince sneak around the castle at night, and it goes about as well as expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tower Walls

**Author's Note:**

> summary may imply significantly more makeouts than this fic contains. sorry.
> 
> loosely sorta based on [this doodle](http://togekissies.tumblr.com/post/93450192798/things-i-am-predictable) i did a couple months ago. i'm nooooot super happy w the designs at this point so i may redraw them, but whatever.

The glass ball in his hands glows with a deep forest green glow. Tobio takes a few steady breaths, concentrates, and the glow shifts purple, to yellow, to a fiery orange. The glass starts to heat up, and he tries to focus on keeping it cool, but it just hotter and hotter and he wants to throw the damn thing against the wall. Projecting his magic into a glass ball is one of the first things taught to kids for them to learn control, but he’s frustrated and antsy and nothing else has gone his way today so something a child could do might as well just explode in his face already.

There’s a soft knock at his door and it surprises Tobio so much he nearly sends too much magic into the glass, which would make it explode. He quickly extinguishes it instead and tilts his head to the door. He only has a single candle lit and he hasn’t made any noise, so hopefully whoever it is will think he’s asleep this late at night and leave.

“Kageyamaaaa,” a voice behind the door calls, “I know you’re in there, open up already.”

He recognizes that voice and complete unwillingness to add his royal title to his name, sighs, and something compels him to open the door. Of course the person behind it is Hinata, the young squire he’d met earlier that year and immediately hated. His hand is still held in a loose fist and raised halfway to the door like he was about to knock again, and his jaw drops.

“Whoa! I was beginning to think you weren’t going to answer.”

Tobio sighs. “What do you want.”

Hinata takes a half step so he’s not completely facing Tobio anymore, and he starts fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “Uh, well,” he says, and if Tobio didn’t know any better he’d think he was nervous, “I kind of wanted to show you something?”

“...Huh?”

“You just seemed like you were in such a bad mood earlier!” Hinata starts gesturing with his hands. “And it was annoying me for some reason and there’s this place I like to go when I’m in a bad mood so I was wondering if it’d help you too, so, here I am.” Tobio stares at him for a long moment, long enough for Hinata’s cheeks to color pink and for him to scrunch his face up in irritation. “Stop doing that! Are you coming or not?”

The same thing that made Tobio open the door in the first place makes him close it behind him and say, “Fine.” It’s not like he’s finding comfort in small magic tricks and he’s too wound up to sleep, so maybe going on a terrible trek with Hinata will burn off some energy.

Hinata lights up. “Great! Okay, just follow me, and be quiet.” he instructs, which seems a little odd considering how loud he got a few seconds ago, but Tobio nods anyway. Hinata turns on his heel and marches down the hall, and soon enough he’s leading Tobio through corridors with such confidence one would think he was the one who grew up in the castle, not Tobio, even though he does manage to make a few wrong turns.

Since it’s late, nearly everyone has turned in for the night, and they don’t run into anyone. A few times Hinata’s ears perk up and he shoves Tobio into a room or behind a statue and they hide, huddled together, until a patrolling guard passes and Hinata gives the all-clear. Each time it happens Tobio remembers how impressed he was with Hinata’s instincts the first time they met, and how annoyed he was that they were wasted on him. He isn’t sure if using them to sneak around his castle in the middle of the night is a good use of his natural skills, but trying to match him is a good distraction, and by the time they reach the base of a tower Tobio’s frustration has all but melted away.

Hinata is about to open the heavy door when he freezes and looks behind them. He doesn’t say anything, he just grabs Tobio’s arm and pulls him into a nook behind a tapestry, which is the worst hiding place they’ve been in by far. Tobio has to flatten himself completely against the wall, and even then he thinks the fabric may still be jutting out awkwardly around their bodies. Seconds later he hears clanking footsteps, and he can imagine a guard walking down the corridor, his armor slightly ill-fitting and bored from years of walking the same halls at night. Hinata’s grip on his arm tightens and Tobio wants to tell him _I know, I’m not stupid_ , but he’s not going to be the one to get them caught.

He holds his breath until he can’t hear the guard walking anymore, and longer still while Hinata listens. The tug on his sleeve is his signal to move, and they deftly duck out into the hall. Hinata opens the door with a slight struggle, waves him through, and closes it as quietly as he can. It echos in the dim spiral stairwell of the tower, and Tobio hopes it’s quieter in the hall. Hinata takes his hand and starts to practically run up the stairs, only slowing down when Tobio estimates they’re about a quarter of the way up. He thinks it’s more likely Hinata became dizzy from running in circles, though, and tries to act like his head isn’t spinning, either.

When Hinata’s not wearing his armor and is just in regular clothing he’s surprisingly quiet, Tobio realizes. Maybe his training is going well, because he sees hardly a trace of the clumsy squire he met back in spring. He notices Hinata hasn’t dropped his hand yet, and is surprised when he realizes that Hinata’s are rough, probably from sword training. He can’t help but think about his own hands, soft from his easy life spent indoors, and he’s _jealous_.

“Where are you taking me, anyway?” he says, turning his head and looking out of a passing window. He can see the castle gate, with two pricks of light from the fire on each flanking tower.

Hinata looks at him over his shoulder, eyebrows knit. “It’s a surprise, duh! I did say it was a surprise, didn’t I?”

“No.” Tobio says. He frowns. “Are you going to try to shove me off the top?”

“What?! No! You might be a jerk, but I’d never do that! Besides, if I tried, you’d fry me to a crisp or something.”

Tobio can’t deny that, so he doesn’t bother. But despite being a frontrunner for succession he hasn’t gotten any assassination attempts yet, and he’s starting to wonder if he’s overdue or if the entire kingdom thinks he’s a joke, too.

They’re very nearly to the top of the tower when Hinata stops suddenly, and Tobio runs into him. “Hey—watch it!” he says, shoving away from him. Hinata drops his hand and glares.

“ _You_ watch it,” he shoots back, which he must realize is a terrible retort, because he changes the subject. “I want this to be a good surprise, so close your eyes, alright?”

Tobio stares at him. “You are out of your mind if you think I’m closing my eyes.”

“Don’t be such a baby!” Something seems to occur to Hinata. He smiles and badly covers it with his hand. “Oh... I didn’t know you were afraid of the dark, Kageyama.”

The insult is childish and completely in line with every other one Hinata’s flung at him over the months they’ve known each other, but today it reminds Tobio of his cousin. He thinks back to earlier that day, when Oikawa smiled at him at a meeting and, in front of advisors and nobles and everyone in charge of choosing the next ruler of their kingdom, reminded them of how _young_ he is and how _hard_ a time he’s had making friends. He saw himself the way the people in the room saw him: a child, isolated and quick to anger, who’s only good quality, a natural skill at magic, could never lead a country. He hears all this repeated in Hinata’s voice, and his face falls into a resigned glower.

Hinata wasn’t at that meeting. Tobio doubts he even knows anyone who was. But if there’s one thing he’s good at that Tobio’s not, it’s reading people, and he stops smiling when he sees Tobio’s expression. “Dammit,” he says under his breath. And then, a little louder, “That’s the kind of face I wanted you to _stop_ making.”

“I wasn’t making any kind of face.”

“You were! You were like, don’t bother me I am ANGRY.” Hinata puts his hands on his hair to flatten it and scrunches up his face in what Tobio assumes is his impression of him. “And you were walking around like that all day!”

“I did not look like that!” Tobio slaps Hinata’s elbow, forcing his arm into the air. “And stop doing that, you’re annoying.”

Unfortunately this makes Hinata grin, like this was the kind of reaction he was going for. He unties a twist of cloth from around his left wrist. “Just humor me, okay? If you won’t close your eyes, I’ll blindfold you.”

The same mysterious force that made Tobio decide to go on a nighttime adventure with Hinata makes him stand still. Hinata, from his position a couple steps above him, is surprisingly gentle but still clumsy when he ties the fabric over his eyes.

“It’s loose,” Tobio says. “And you got my hair in the knot.”

He can’t see Hinata, but he can picture his indignant face perfectly. “Oh, shut up. You could have just closed your eyes, asshole.” Tobio swears he’s going to throw the blindfold over the side of the tower once they get to the top. “And don’t you dare toss that blindfold away, my sister gave it to me before I left as a good luck charm.”

Tobio decides he is not going to throw the blindfold over the side of the tower.

“Now come on alrea--oh. Wait.” Hinata takes his hand once more, but this time Tobio snatches it away.

“I know how to climb stairs.”

“Ugh! I know you know! But I’m not having you fall and snap your royal neck when I’m the only one around, alright?”

He hesitates. He’s let Hinata lead him around by the nose all evening and he doesn’t like literally walking blindly to whatever it is excited Hinata about the top of a tower, but... he has to admit, not having to think is a nice change from the rest of the day. He holds out his hand, and Hinata takes it and pulls him along.

Thankfully it doesn’t take long before Hinata says, “Last step, we’re at the top.” He stops, drops Tobio’s hand, and says, “I’m gonna open the door now.” After a few seconds of shuffling and the sound of something heavy scraping along the ground, he feels Hinata return to his side and then he’s literally shoved into the cool night air.

“Alright!” Hinata says, a slight nervous lit to his voice. “We’re here. Just let me take that off—”

Tobio smacks his hands away from the knot at the back of his head. “I’ll do it, for all I know you’ll tear out my hair and give me a bald spot.”

“I would _not_!” Hinata says, offended, but he steps back and lets Tobio undo his own blindfold.

He tugs on his scalp a little more than he would like, but the knot isn’t tight and comes undone easily in his hands. He blinks into the dark landscape, and sees... absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Sure, he doesn’t go up the towers to sightsee very often, and it is admittedly quiet up here, but he has no idea why he needed to be blindfolded for nothing. He looks at Hinata, who is staring up at him with his anticipation written all over his face. Tobio doesn’t know what to do, so he holds out the scrap of cloth. “Here.”

Hinata pouts, snatches the cloth back and starts wrapping it around his wrist, over the sleeve of his shirt. “Up,” he says, “You were supposed to look _up_.”

Tobio looks up, and he sees the stars.

It isn’t like he’s never looked up at the night sky before. He’s had plenty of astronomy lessons in the dead of night, but they were always so boring and he was always so tired that he would doze off. Oikawa would lord his higher marks over him too, which never made Tobio feel fond of stars.

But for some reason this view is different. It’s the sky unobstructed by buildings, by trees, by the banners that fly from every castle wall. He’s so much closer to it and it feels so much more open that he’s almost afraid that if he looks for too long he’ll fall upwards. The moon is nothing but a sliver, allowing the cloud of stars that streaks across the sky to stand out even more brightly.

He looks down at Hinata again, who has a knowing smile on his face. “I come up here all the time,” he says, “guards never patrol here so it’s really private. I fell asleep here a couple times this summer. I was late to morning training and Captain was so pissed.”

“Can we—” Tobio stops, surprised that he spoke. Hinata raises his eyebrows. “Can we... stay here a while?”

“Of course! I dunno why you’d wanna climb all those stairs just to stay for a couple minutes, anyway.”

Tobio decides to sit down and lean against the wall of the tower. He rests his head back and gazes at the stars. Hinata joins him, sitting close enough that he can feel his warmth, but far enough that they aren’t touching. Surprisingly he doesn’t try to fill the air with meaningless chatter, but seems to know what Tobio needs right now is silence.

He doesn’t know how long he just stares at the sky, but when he finally looks down his neck feels stiff. The autumn night has just been getting progressively colder and beneath his jacket he’s starting to feel the chill. He imagines Hinata must be colder in just a cotton pullover, even if he is finally wearing something with longer sleeves. Tobio glances at him and, sure enough, the tip of his nose and ears have gone pink, and he had his hands tucked across his stomach.

“You know,” Hinata says, “The Crows are leaving soon.”

Tobio did, in fact, know that Hinata’s monster patrol unit would be departing the castle sooner rather than later. The Crows have always been a rather solitary group, though they don’t have as many members as they used to. He figured their new captain, a man named Sawamura, hoped a longer than usual stay at the capital would encourage new recruits, but he must be giving up by now. Tobio used to look forward to getting rid of those noisy Crows, but now he feels a little empty.

“So, I was thinking,” Hinata continues, “Since you’re good at magic and you wanna travel and you’re so jealous of me being part of a cool team and all—”

“I’m not jealous.”

“Shut up, you are! I’ve seen the way you look—”

“I’m _not_ jealous.”

Hinata glares at him. “As I was saying,” he says pointedly, “I’m pretty sure if you asked Captain if you can join, he’ll let you. I mean.” His glare deflates into something much more timid. “If you want to.”

“...Me?” he asks, because he can’t believe anyone would want to fight side by side with him.

“Well, yeah. Remember a couple months ago when that imp broke in and we were there so we took it down?” Hinata looks him in the eye until he nods. “It was so cool! It was like, pow! And we were fighting and it charged us and BAM! We took it down! We made a really good team.” Hinata throws a few punches to the air even though he fought with a sword.

“I guess we did.” Tobio says.

Hinata smiles at him. “It was great! And we could do that a lot more. This place is so boring and the world is so big, you should come with us.” He pauses, and adds again, “If you want.”

The worst part is Tobio does want to. He’s only made a few trips out of the capital in his life, and all have been heavily scheduled and even more heavily guarded. Leaving may kill any small chance he may have remaining at becoming crown prince. Then again, a few years ago Oikawa left to join a unit of his own. He came back after being elected its leader, has been working his verbal magic on the royal advisors ever since. Tobio just can’t speak to people the way he can. But he has magic, and he wants to see the world, so Oikawa can inherit the throne when their grandmother dies for all he cares.

“Okay,” he says finally, “I’ll do it.”

“Really?” Hinata is so excited his eyes practically outshine the stars. Tobio nods. Then, strangely, Hinata leans forward until his face is closer and closer and their lips touch. A kiss, he realizes. He’s kissing him. He has no idea what to do and his body goes rigid, but he becomes aware of everything; the constant breeze from being on a high tower, the distant music of crickets, and just how cold Hinata’s nose is.

But he doesn’t hate it, and maybe, just maybe, he relaxes a little.

Hinata pulls back and stares at Tobio in confusion, until it dawns on him that he’s the one who initiated the kiss. He shoots backwards and goes bright red from his ears to his neck.

“D-don’t have them decapitate me,” he squeaks out.

“What? Decapitate you?” Tobio’s voice isn’t working the way it normally does, so he tries clearing his throat. “Why would I do that?”

“Because—that was—” Hinata waves his arms around as if that will cause his rambling to become understandable. “Probably really illegal?”

“What?” Tobio still doesn’t know exactly what he’s talking about. “Look, Hinata—” But he has no idea what to say.

Hinata presses his fingers to his forehead, closes his eyes, and takes several deep breaths. “Okay,” he says, pushing himself to his feet. “Okay. I’m—I’m gonna go get you at dawn, and take you to see our captain, and then we’re gonna go on adventures, and, um,” he frowns. “Nevermind. Just be awake!”

“...I will.”

“Okay. Okay! Goodnight, Kageyama!” Hinata does a clumsy bow, one of the first he’s done for Tobio in months, and then bolts through the tower door.

Tobio sits back against the wall, alone with his thoughts, the stars, and the feeling of Hinata’s lips on his.

 

**Author's Note:**

> extra facts about this au i am going to dump here because i highly doubt i'll do anything else with it:
> 
> -yeah, oikawa and tobio are first cousins. i guess technically their parents could inherit too, but that like. ruins the story. whatever.  
> -oikawa's older sister was never interested in the throne and passed on possible inheritance when she came of age. technically her son, takeru, could be in the running too but why go for some kid who's like eight when you could have a kid who's like sixteen.  
> -technically shimizu could make a bid for the throne too, since she's related to the royal family, and tbqh she'd be a much better ruler than either oikawa or tobio because she's a natural at politics and trade agreements.  
> -the main problem the kingdom deals with are monster attacks, so they have small patrol units to protect citizens. a lot of them are based in or near larger towns, but the crows are wanderers with a home base they come back to every month or so. the cats are the same way, too.  
> -so yeah, the schools are all monster patrol units.  
> -the crows were always one of the more solitary units, but they became famous several years ago when they beat what's essentially a boss monster. a lot of the older members disliked the fame and left, which nearly made the unit die out. daichi's hoping he can save it, since his current team is small, but incredibly good.  
> -oh yeah, the cloth shoyo has? was a part of natsu's favorite dress, which she tore accidentally before he left.
> 
> s'about it. thanks for making it this far, haha!


End file.
